When swagger merits the dagger -- NYT: Wolfoshitz's sorry adventures at the World Bank

[Bozita]

How many different words are there for "bully"?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/18/washington/18worldbank.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1179461887-TFa7m1eae7+1HoR34V2CcA&pagewanted=print


May 18, 2007

How Battles at Bank Ended ‘Second Chance’ at a Career
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN

WASHINGTON, May 17 — Paul D. Wolfowitz was ready to move on from the Pentagon in early 2005. He had been thwarted in his effort to become defense secretary or national security adviser. And the war in Iraq had deteriorated. So when the World Bank presidency came open, he jumped at the opportunity.

It offered him a “second chance” to redeem his reputation and realize his ambitions, says a friend who has known him for decades.

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“Wolfowitz unsettled people from the outset,” said Manish Bapna, executive director of the Bank Information Center, an independent watchdog group. “His style was seen as an ad hoc subjective approach to punishing enemies and rewarding friends.”

At the Pentagon, Mr. Wolfowitz began advocating going to war with Iraq just a few days after Sept. 11, 2001, and continued pressing over the next year to oust Saddam Hussein.

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Once Mr. Wolfowitz leaves the bank, friends say, he may join the legions of former colleagues, from George J. Tenet of the C.I.A. to L. Paul Bremer III, who led the post-invasion government in Iraq, who have written books and op-ed articles to defend their actions on the war.

Bank officials say, in fact, that when he arrived there in 2005, Mr. Wolfowitz wanted to write a book about Iraq and accept fees for speeches. That set off his first fight with ethics officers, who told him he could not do so.

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